It’s been years since I’ve played a Naruto title. I was actually really into the anime when the Shippuden Arc started, but my attention slowly waned after filler episodes, which took them a while to go into the main story. While I did know a majority of the characters, the latest installment of Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm gives you so much content that at first you might be overwhelmed. Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 (NSUNS 4) does a great job with new players and fans alike to revisit the final act of the Naruto series, the Great Ninja War.

This was done through the story mode, which developers, CyberConnect 2, beautifully recreated scenes from the anime and created their own twist on certain moments. This was great because you could tell they put their hearts and souls into it when they could have just used the anime sequences. There were two ways that the story moves forward. One was with animated stills, and the other way was using in-game assets, which look great overall. I did notice in the 3-D sequences that the dubbing could be so much better and kinda breaks the immersion. What I could tell of the voice acting was that it was very polished and didn’t sound to cheesy like some anime games. Overall, the story took me a couple of hours to complete, and I didn’t even get to do the side plots. NSUNS 4 is just packed with so much content.

While the story mode is not necessarily an adventure mode per say, the most important things are the fights. NSUNS 4 is a 3-D fighter similar to those Dragon Ball Z 3-D arena fighters. In Ultimate Ninja 4, the biggest change was the ability to tag in your support characters for more combo mayhem with the flick of the right analog stick. Assist characters could still come in and attack with the L1 and R1 buttons but switching off characters definitely gives you more options.

I did notice that this also made the game easier during the standard story mode. I completed everything in one go, except for the big brawls including the Nine Tailed Fox and Susanoo. Just because the fighting was easy to get a grasp on doesn’t mean it wasn’t fun. I was totally enjoying myself trying to build custom combos with the tag and assist options. Everything felt fluid, and it was really not too hard to get into since the story mode gave you tips that you can turn off.

Visually, Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 looked amazing. It’s literally an exact copy of watching the anime. You can still technically know that it’s a game and not a cartoon if you have sharp eyes. Because the console version still has trouble with AA solutions, it’s definitely much better than last-gen consoles but still a bummer since i thought we would be past jaggies this gen for cel-shaded games. Still, very impressive and your eyes will enjoy the eye-candy with every big special attack.

NSUNS 4 has a variety of modes for you to enjoy like Story mode and a lot of VS options, including Tournament option and Survival mode which can be played with over 70 characters. While a bunch of the characters have different forms, they have unique special attacks. Even the voice actors change if you choose kid versions of the characters, which is impressive that they included it for the fans. Another mode, which takes place after the Story mode of NSUNS 4, is Adventure mode. Surprisingly, it compared to a lite action RPG where you and two other teammates go across the world of Naruto doing quests and battles for other people.

While it may have been light with the variety of quests you can do, it was still very impressive for a game to have this much for $60. I feel like this generation of consoles have been including less content for the price tag. That is why I said this game will overwhelm you. It also included an online mode, which was hit and miss in finding matches. I played around 20 matches, and seven matched played fine. But, the others ended up losing connection or were laggy. Either way, you still get your money’s worth with NSUNS 4.

Editor's Rating

Fun Factor–85%

Gameplay–90%

Presentation–95%

Besides a bit of repetition with the fighting system and difficulty, Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 overall was fan service done right, especially if you have been away from the anime or manga scene for a long time. NSUNS 4 did so many things right. It put a lot of other $60 games for shame. If you're interested in Naruto or would just like to try something new, NSUNS 4 is definitely worth the price of admission with its abundance of content.

Jose Estrella

Hey guys! I’m Jose the second half of Dual Pixels and co-host of DPR. I enjoy fighters more than any other genre because I grew up playing them when I was a wee-lad. Looking forward to the future of gaming and more Spider-Man! Come on Sony you can do it.

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Dual Pixels is more than just an organization, it's a culture. The interactive arts are our passion, this includes gaming and innovations brought forward with technology. The beauty of being an independent organization is the fact that we have the opportunity to bring back the enthusiasm in a gaming industry which is becoming increasingly corporate and stale. The Dual Pixels brand is full of perspective hence the reason why we also go by the appellation "The Digital Crossover".